Posh mid-size hatchbacks are big business right now. That fact hasn’t escaped the attention of ambitious Japanese premium brand Infiniti.

Infiniti entered the European market in 2009 and has seen steady if slow sales growth since. Now it wants a much bigger piece of the pie and has targeted the posh hatchback sector as the place to get it.

Fortunately, Infiniti has a technical partnership with Mercedes, which makes one of the biggest sellers in the sector, the A-Class. So rather than go the time and expense of building a completely new car from scratch, Infiniti has mixed together a lot of A-Class bits to build its challenger: the Infiniti Q30.